Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will maintain patient access to technologies considered through commissioning through evaluation programmes during that evaluation.

There are two main phases for any treatments entered into NHS England's Commissioning through Evaluation (CtE) programme.

During the first phase, an agreed number of patients are recruited to the scheme within just a few participating centres across England. This enables patients to benefit from the skills and expertise in each centre, within an evaluation programme, whilst detailed clinical and patient experience data are collected.

Once the total number of patients have been treated, the scheme enters an analysis phase. Whilst any patients already treated under the scheme will continue to receive appropriate follow up care, no new patients will be funded by NHS England during the analysis phase.

This ensures that NHS England directs the majority of public funds to evidence based care and also means that dedicated CtE programme funding can then be redirected to support patient recruitment in another area of specialised care where further evaluation data is needed.

This represents a continuation of NHS England's published policy position for the treatment concerned (i.e. that the treatment is not routinely commissioned by the National Health Service).